IN the great scheme of things, when it comes to carnage on the roads, lawbreaking by cyclists often seems like relatively small beer.

Cycling on the pavements or riding without lights is hardly the crime of the century is it?

If you are tempted to take this point of view and shrug your shoulders the next time someone on two wheels comes hurtling past in a pedestrianised area, spare a thought for two people at different ends of the age spectrum, four-year-old Sienna Barnett and a pensioner aged 71 from Boscombe East. Both were knocked to the ground as they walked on pavements in the past few months. Sienna suffered a broken leg last month when she was mown down in Southbourne.

Not far away, in Christchurch Road, the pensioner was struck in September in similar circumstances as she came out of her local post office. In both cases, the cyclists rode off, apparently not even stopping to check how their victims were.

In the case of the elderly woman, the rider has now appeared in court and pleaded guilty to dangerous cycling.

He was ordered to pay the woman (who says she is happy with the outcome), £300 in compensation.

That seems to me, to be pretty poor recompense for five weeks in hospital and fairly nasty injuries. Most right thinking people would probably think he got off lightly.

As Sienna’s mum says today, she sees ten people riding on the pavements every day and predicts further accidents. She’s right. Unless police and the courts start making an example of these thoughtless (and in some cases cowardly) lunatics.